Video Transcript: Q & A with Henry Reyenga - Women in Ordination Discussion
Henry - Carolyn, I was very much engaged in the ordination conversation here, especially, just recently I went through Lord Bingham's volumes of early church order. And it was interesting how, in Colossians in chapter two, this is the NIV and it's you know we can lose the translation in English here. He's talking about how they know the mystery of Christ and and then says, I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine sounding arguments. For though I am absent from the body, I am present with you in spirit and delight. To see how orderly you are and how firm. your faith in Christ is other translations say And I behold your order. That word order is the word. Is that Taso? Is that or Tod?
Carolyn - Yeah, taxis .
Henry - Taxis it's a noun right here. And you will comment on that word. I know that it's a military word about ranks and all that.
Carolyn - Yeah, I'm not happy with that translation orderly, as I think orderly, it sounds pretty boring. Okay. But But taxis is it? Yes, it's a sense of ordering organization. I mean, what else to say that that things have to be very clear. And, you know, you have to know where you stand. Quite in contrast to charism and prophecy, where you really don't know where you stand. So what's being emphasized, here is the orderly part of it. Whereas elsewhere, Paul will certainly talk about the charism about prophecy.
Henry - So what you really get a sense that, that, that balance between prophesy charismatic, and orderly structure, you know, Paul notices this in the early church. Now, in a sense, he himself has no idea what this is gonna mean. That's fascinating too like, and I noticed that at Christian Leaders Ministries, Institute, College like you are being launched in the ministry, and in cultures in Africa, or Asia, or Latin America, America, or in United States, Canada, I mean, Great Britain, and things are happening at a local level, that both order and charisma function. And we don't really know what that is going to mean yet. And Paul himself did not,
Carolyn - no. And and Paul is at the beginning of this, and you have to imagine this is a group of people who are conscious, they're starting something new. Now they have a background that traditionally in their own society, and they have a tradition of from Israel, even if they are Gentiles, which most of them probably were, and in Colossae, and probably they mostly were, they have been evangelized, by Paul on the basis of the Scriptures, the Hebrew Bible, so they have all of that background to go on, but still, they are creating something new. And questions arise, like Paul dealing with with the issue of mixed marriage in I Corinthians 7, you know, he says, Well, I have this from the Lord, but the Lord didn't say anything about this so this is what I think. So they're having to do that all the time.
Henry - Even in the ordination passage. You you get a sense when I don't permit in, you know, You know, you there's just a little bit of like, there's an order here. There's family codes, there's all this other stuff,
Carolyn - and how are we going to pull it off?
Henry - but you know what? Christ is Lord, and we're proclaiming the gospel, increasing the church. Very good. Thank you very much.